Tag Archives: cuttings

The reason I am a wistful gardener, as opposed to an exhausted or thoroughly satisfied gardener, is that however much I love gardening, it is a hobby not my livelihood. My efforts are largely confined to the weekends, summer evenings and the odd half an hour grabbed during the working week.

Instead I spend my home-office-bound days gazing wistfully out at my garden, noting the never-ending lists of tasks I could be completing and observing how the plants first knit together, then soon start jostling for precious space.

Gradually the plants encroach indoors too. Right now window sills brim with geranium, begonia and fuchsia cuttings that have survived the window and tiny seedlings, fresh from the window sill propagators are starting to harden off indoors.

Seedlings, cuttings and seed potatoes fight it out

Though with late snow falling as I write, it seems forever before they will be outdoors.

So this wistful gardener spends rather more time observing and longing to be gardening, than she would like. But maybe I’m a better gardener because of it. The first few years of building my garden (started 8 years ago) involved a rush to plant in random things in random places with too little thought. Many of those plants have since been moved or have grown into bigger handfuls than I imagined. Plus not taking the time to fix the structure first was a big mistake.

But as a wistful gardener, I get to plot and plan and of course think about all kinds of things I could buy or grow from seed. These days I have a more accurate sense of the final look in my head before I plant things.

This blog aims to be part diary, part planning tool and part advice exchange as I share how my garden evolves over the coming year.